The Shady Adventures of Fabian

Chapter 47

Fabian scouted out the situation at Madge's Inn from the treeline. The place was definitely full-blown on fire at this point and he saw Madge come running out the front entrance as she took off down the trail almost right past his hiding spot. He ducked further into the shadows and she raced by without appearing to notice him.

"All right, Fabes, you can do this," he said to himself. "Not the biggest fan of fire, but all I've got to do is run into that pantry, grab a bag of salt and run back out. Don't even really need to waste time being stealthy since Madge isn't even in the joint. This should be a total cakewalk."

Fabian covered his mouth with his shirt to try to minimize smoke inhalation as he darted into the Inn. The fire hadn't fully spread to the common room yet, although there were a few licks of flame scattered about here and there. He headed back to the pantry and threw open the door. Quickly scanning the shelves, he found a twenty pound bag of salt, which he hoisted onto his back and turned around. That was when a burning ceiling beam decided to fall down and block off the doorway to the pantry, trapping Fabian inside.

"So much for cakewalks," Fabian muttered to himself as he desperately looked around the pantry for anything that might be of use. There were bags of grains and sacks of potatoes and jars filled with pickled fruits, but nothing seemed particularly promising. In the meantime the confined space of the pantry was quickly starting to fill up with smoke. Fabian tried to kick the beam in the hopes that the fire had made it fragile and it might break easily, but unfortunately it was still incredibly solid and all he accomplished was giving himself a nasty throbbing pain in his foot. He returned to the shelves and started flinging aside jars and boxes and bags, trying to see if there was anything hidden somewhere on a back shelf that might prove useful. In the process he knocked over a large sack of baking powder, that landed on the ground and exploded into a cloud of dust. Curiously it extinguished the fire on the beam as the large cloud of powder descended on it.

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Fabian wiggled his way out through a tight opening beneath the beam, which was still quite hot, but no longer actively burning. He reached back and made sure to haul the bag of salt after him. He emerged into a common room that was filled with a much heavier wall of flames than it had been when he entered. The front door was still open so he ran towards it as fast as he could, ignoring the cracking sound he heard from overhead. He leaped through the door just as the whole building collapsed behind him.

"That was a little too close for comfort," he said as he wiped some sweat off his brow. "But at least I got my bag of salt. Aw man, there's a hole in the bottom of this sack!" He did his best to cover the hole with his hand but a sizeable stream of salt continued to leak out. Fabian hurried back down the path towards the campsite.

A large boar was sniffing Derek's head when he got back, but it ran off into the thicket after Fabian shooed it away. He gave everyone a cursory examination. "Looks like they're all in one piece. No scrapes or bite marks that weren't already there. Perfect. They'll never know I was gone."

Rothchild let out a shuddering noise.

"You'll keep your trap shut if you know what's best for you, horse. Do you want to know what happens to snitches in the brig? I'll tell you what, I don't think you do. It ain't pretty. I can promise you that."

Rothchild pawed the ground a couple times and then looked away.

"All righty, then," Fabian said as he carefully wiggled the ankh from around Derek's neck. "I'll just borrow this for a few minutes. Let's see, I've got my salt, I've got my object of power, I know my words of incantation. It's a good thing I asked the tree bitch her name. I've got you now, lady."

He poured all of the remaining salt onto the ground in a large circle as instructed. He grasped the ankh tightly in both hands and uttered Druvidia's name three times. She appeared suddenly in the center of the circle.

"What's going on here?" she asked. "I didn't will myself to materialize here. And why can't I move?"

"Oh, that would be because I bound you, you stupid hag," Fabian said with a smile.

"You did this?" Druvidia asked in disbelief. "How did an idiot like you learn how to accomplish something like this?"

"Let's just say our cleric friend here had some very interesting information I managed to weasel out of him. He was quite forthcoming with it, too. Maybe he doesn't like you either? I mean, deep down he must have known why I was asking him how to banish spirits. He can't possibly be that stupid, can he?"

"The man was extremely fatigued. You probably wouldn't have gotten away with this stupid plan of yours if he had been well rested. Well, good for you. You've managed to bind me. Now what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to banish you from this world permanently," Fabian said. "Derek here taught me a few magic words that he assures me will do the trick. Normally I try to steer as far away from magic as I can, but in your case I'll make an exception. Ooo, I hope you get sent to some sort of hell dimension or something. At the very least I hope the process is extremely painful."

"You'd better hope you know how to say these words correctly, dumbass," Druvidia said. "Because if you get a single syllable wrong and the spell fails I will make it my sole purpose to destroy you."

"Hey, you think I wouldn't practice this until I'm a total expert? I know the words like I know my way around a good brothel.

"Are you sure?" Druvidia asked. "I'd love it if you messed up and I became tangible. I could make you hurt a lot. But fear not, even if I remain ethereal I can find ways to make you suffer in ways you can't imagine."

"I'm getting bored of you now. Bye bye." Fabian held the ankh up and began the incantations. Just as he was getting to the second word, Rothchild flicked his tail sending a cloud of dust straight for Fabian's face. He could feel a sneezing fit about to come on, but there was no way he was going to screw this up. He got the rest of the syllables out in a hurry, somehow managing to enunciate each one clearly, before he was overcome with sneezes.

There was a loud ripping sound and a tear in the very fabric of reality appeared over Druvidia's head. A bright blue light shone down and completely engulfed her. It looked like she was trying to say something, but no sound came out of her mouth. A moment later she was sucked up into the hole and the tear repaired itself instantly as if it had never been there.

"Druvidia?" Fabian called out. There was no response. "All right! Looks like mission accomplished. I'll just slip this ankh back around the cleric's neck." He shot a dirty look over in Rothchild's direction. "If I didn't know any better I'd think you tried to make me sneeze on purpose. Lucky for you, you're a dumb animal or I'd slit your throat for pulling a stunt like that. Anyway, looks like I've got a few hours before I'm supposed to wake these chodes up. Should be plenty of time to squeeze in a little nap."